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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593154">Dear Ben</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/XarisEirene/pseuds/XarisEirene'>XarisEirene</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, First Kiss, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Kylo Ren Redemption, Lightsabers, Love Letters, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo - Freeform, Romantic Soulmates, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Sweet, The Force Ships It</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:21:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/XarisEirene/pseuds/XarisEirene</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He shouldn’t read it. Even if their bond afforded him insight to her thoughts and feelings, he should allow her this privacy. But his eyes betrayed him, sliding back to the words of their own accord. He caught “I love you” and prickly heat speared his chest. What was this, a farewell note to some amour? The defector perhaps? </p>
<p>He crooked his fingers to call the pages to hand, then reconsidered using the Force, and slipped them from under her arm, slowly and with utmost care to avoid waking her. Maybe he shouldn’t read it, shouldn’t violate her trust like that, but intel was intel. And she was still the enemy. </p>
<p>He shuffled the sheets into order and began at the top.<br/>----------------------<br/>In which, unbeknownst to Rey, Kylo Ren reads her “Dear Ben” letter somewhere between Kijimi and Kef Bir.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren &amp; Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey &amp; Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>218</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Reylo Romance (SW canon only)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Message in a Bottle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rey wrestles with revelations about her identity as a Palpatine and her feelings for Ben.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey hunkered on a bench in the <em>Millennium Falcon’s</em> lounge and tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders, as if the fabric could ward off his words, could somehow melt the frost gnawing at her bones. After Jakku’s sunburnt sands, she never quite adjusted to frigid space, climate controlled or not, but this sensation was altogether different, like ice expanding in her soul. She shivered and gathered her knees into the shelter of her arms, rested her chin on their bony summit. The hyperdrive’s drone and the warble of her friends’ voices lulled her toward that thin place between waking and sleeping, that place where memory lived.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Because he saw what you would become. You don’t just have power; you have his power.” A masked Ben prowled toward her on the destroyer’s flight deck, feline restraint in his measured steps. His body thrummed with controlled energy.</em>
</p>
<p>No! She couldn’t bear to hear it again. Her head snapped up. She flayed her heavy eyelids until they opened, just missing the question Finn lobbed to Poe where they sprawled at the empty game table.</p>
<p>“My mom taught me to fly,” Poe answered. “She was a pilot in the Battle of Endor, you know, was there when Luke Skywalker escaped the Death Star.”</p>
<p>Finn rumbled a reply, too quiet for Rey to make out.</p>
<p>“That’s what I hear,” Poe said. “Half-sunk in the oceans of Kef Bir. Disrupted the entire tidal system. Guess we’ll see for ourselves in”—he consulted his wrist chrono—“about six hours.”</p>
<p>Only six hours remained? How long had she sat here, revolving <em>his</em> words over and over, her boiling anger somehow numbed with shock and cold with fear? She should sleep while she had the chance, but to withdraw to the <em>Falcon’s</em> stateroom was to risk confronting the horror alone.</p>
<p>
  <em>“You’re his granddaughter. You are a Palpatine.” Ben stated it as bald fact, no judgment, no deceit. “My mother was the daughter of Vader. Your father was the son of the Emperor.”</em>
</p>
<p>Had he ever lied to her? Why would he now? What did he want from her? To seduce her to his side because they were alike in heritage, had even more in common than she originally thought? She pressed her knees harder against her chest and pinched her eyes closed as if she could somehow become one with the <em>Falcon</em> and fade away from this awful reality.</p>
<p>Yet she recognized it as truth even as he spoke. It explained so much. The Force lightning, the creeping shadows, that apparition on the dark throne. Now she had a name for the black ice that glittered in her veins—Force only knew what she was capable of. She was right to be afraid.</p>
<p>Poe’s volume flung his words across her stormy reflections like a lifeline. She flailed to catch hold and pull herself to safer shores.</p>
<p>“No, actually, my mom did that too. Served as General Organa’s pilot for a time. They had scads of adventures together.” Poe grimaced. “But I was young, didn’t see her much.”</p>
<p>Rey didn’t know that about Poe. His mom flew for Leia? No wonder Poe had become her protégé, almost like a second son. Did he know Ben, then, as children? They must have been near in age. Poe had never mentioned it. Even after being interrogated by Kylo Ren, he never gave any indication Ben was an old acquaintance.</p>
<p><em>Ben</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>“What Palpatine doesn’t know is we’re a dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one.” His vocoder struck a sinister tone, yet it was belied by the longing that bled through their bond—a shadowed inversion of hope. What should have repelled sang to her, set her blood pulsing to a melody that had echoed in her heart as long as she could remember, left her nearly breathless with its haunting call of home.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“We’ll kill him together and take the throne.” He removed his mask, exposing the stark planes of his face, pale and solemn. Hunger manifested in the intensity of his soulful gaze—she felt it as a palpable ache in the depths of her being. He wanted this. He wanted her. Desperately. </em>
</p>
<p>“She and my dad,” Poe’s incongruous voice jarred Rey back to the <em>Falcon</em>, “they retired on Yavin 4. Planted a koyo orchard and harvested its fruit.” Poe went on, explaining life on the Dameron farm to an inquisitive Finn. How could they continue chatting, as if the entire axis of the galaxy hadn’t shifted, as if the shape of their future didn’t rest on her shoulders?</p>
<p>Ben’s face reappeared, determined to claim her attention even in memory.</p>
<p>
  <em>“You know what you need to do. You know.” He extended that gloved hand. Again. It consumed her vision.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She saw past the black sheath to the strength of his palm within, to the gentle touch of his fingers across a fire on Ahch-To, to the absolute certainty of Ben Solo. She wanted to join him. She wanted to take his hand. She could almost feel the slide of supple leather against her skin, her grip swallowed in his, the profound sense of rightness, of fulfillment as their hands linked at last. She wanted… him.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Ben was not just the persistent glow flickering at the heart of Kylo Ren; he was everything she’d been missing and waiting for all her life. That longing to be complete, to be whole, was nearly unbearable. If this was what it meant to be a dyad—to be two that are one—  Maybe this was it. Maybe he was right. Maybe destroying Palpatine would require their united power. What if, in the mystery of the Force, taking his hand now would prove to be his path back to the light?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Time elongated, split her heart wide open, squeezed the backs of her eyes. His fingers twitched, the Force tugged, and the thread connecting them tautened like a climbing rope.</em>
</p>
<p><em>Then Finn’s Force signature blasted through her, and the </em> <em>Falcon’s engines shredded her fleeting hope into the gossamer fantasy it was. Kylo Ren was not for her. Ben had chosen his path, just as she must choose hers.</em></p>
<p>But it frightened her, how very close she came to succumbing. Finn pressed for her confidence. He wanted to understand, but no one could—no one could understand how she was being torn apart from the inside, this agonizing choice between yielding to and sacrificing her heart’s desire. She back-pedaled, circled the words in her mind, and examined them with a scavenger’s meticulous care, searching for flaws, assessing their soundness. It was certainly a day for painful truths and staggering revelations.</p>
<p>Because she loved him.</p>
<p>She saw that now. Not clutching and coercive, not the same way he tracked her from one side of the galaxy to the other, but clear-sighted and compassionate. She had no illusions about who he was. She loved his shackled and weary soul, in all his brokenness and for all he was yet to be, because she had looked into his mind, because he was… who he was. But, oh! To see him free, unfettered, and fully alive—</p>
<p>She sighed. For Ben to have any chance, she must turn her back on temptation and march away, even if it meant withstanding his efforts to stop her. Even if it meant fighting him again. And again. Until the last battle. Until one of them must forfeit or die. The conflict within her, the pull and clash of opposing forces—how long until she fractured from the pressure?</p>
<p>But loving him and knowing her heritage didn’t change what she must do. She would destroy Palpatine, grandfather or not—she must. It fell to her. Since Ben rejected the Skywalker legacy, she would assume the mantle and finish what Anakin started and Luke thought complete. That for which Leia had trained her. A measure of peace descended in the wake of renewed resolve.</p>
<p>“Like I said,” Poe’s laughter vied for her notice, “I was no end of trouble.”</p>
<p>“Was?” Finn raised disbelieving eyebrows and echoed his humor. “You know General Organa calls you ‘General Nuisance’ behind your back?”</p>
<p>Poe’s mouth quirked, but he was not deterred. “Our homestead overlooked a river. They’d cleared the hillside to plant koyo trees,” he swept his hand down to illustrate, “but jungle still lined the banks. I wasn’t allowed because of the anglers and armored eels, but I’d sneak down anyway and pilot the vines like an X-wing over the water.  </p>
<p>“One time I found this canteen floating in the current, fished it out and ran all the way back to my mom. I was so excited that she couldn’t stay angry. There was a message inside, a scrap of flimsi with this stupid little verse.” Poe shook his head in fond recollection.</p>
<p>“What’d it say?” Finn leaned forward on the deactivated Dejarik table, brows hitched in eagerness.</p>
<p>“She sang it to me at bedtime. She didn’t—she didn’t”—his voice cracked and he cleared his throat—“live very long after, but the sound of her crooning that ditty and the smell of soil under her fingernails when she rubbed my back—” Poe’s gaze drifted down the decades far beyond the <em>Falcon’s</em> hull.</p>
<p>Rey watched them, mesmerized as Finn must be, trying to imagine the comfort of a mother’s loving caress.</p>
<p>Then Poe drifted into song, and the lullaby twined around her heart, trailed across her brow like fingertips brushing her hair, rocked her tenderly. Breath tingled at the back of her neck, warm and humid on her skin.</p>
<p>
  <em>You are my sun, my moon, my star—my beacon from afar</em>
</p>
<p>The voice deepened and broadened, murmuring into the whorl of her ear, setting her aquiver at the unexpected intimacy.</p>
<p>
  <em>Wherever I may roam, your steadfast love will light me home</em>
</p>
<p>“You did <em>not</em> just sing to me,” Finn guffawed and shoved back from the table. The fragile moment collapsed in on itself like an unstable wormhole to the past.</p>
<p>Poe blinked, bemused, and then he too scooted away. He glanced at her, probably checking to see if she’d witnessed his vulnerability. “Still cold, Rey? You’re shivering. Want another blanket?”</p>
<p>“I’m fine, but thanks.” She poked her fingers through the gap under her chin and waved his concern away.</p>
<p>He and Finn resumed their conversation as if nothing had occurred.</p>
<p>But Rey still trembled to Ben’s timbre in her ear and his heartbeat against her back. <em>You are my sun, my moon, my star—</em></p>
<p>Like a message in a bottle. She would write to him, commit it not to the sweep of a jungle river, but to the tides of the Force. She had failed to turn him as she intended in Snoke’s throne room. In every encounter since, their collision of wills—and her anger at his choices—clamored too stridently for reason. But she could hope and trust and pray that maybe, when an eddy in the current of time carried him to the confluence of decision, maybe then her words would find their way into his hands and her love would light him home.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Tides in the Force</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kylo contemplates the temptation of a sleeping Rey and the letter in her hand.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here we go--and even a day earlier than I'd hoped!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>With a wave, Kylo Ren swept off the lights, shrouding his quarters in darkness, and grunted as he collapsed on his mattress. He was exhausted. When they reached Kef Bir, he would search the Death Star’s graveyard. That must be where Rey was headed. She’d grown more adept at cloaking herself from him in the Force and through their bond, but not perfectly. Her light still gleamed and glimmered around the curtained edges.</p><p>Plus she’d snatched the Sith blade when she’d been in his quarters. In his quarters! What had drawn her here? He wanted to believe she was seeking him, but no, when the Force connected them, she’d known he was planet-side. Still, her essence lingered like the fragrance of flowers after they closed for the night, brighter than the white walls yet too ephemeral to hold. He crushed the hard pillow under his head. First, to sleep for a few hours at least.</p><p>He rearranged his limbs several times before flopping onto his back and scrubbing a palm down the stubble on his cheek. If she would just let go. If she weren’t so blasted stubborn. This hunting her all over the galaxy when he only wanted her by his side was wearing his patience to a nub. Not that he’d ever had much patience to start, except when it came to her. But he’d seen it. He’d seen the vision of them standing side by side and he knew—he knew with everything in him that he could bring it to pass. He sighed.</p><p>A glow flared in his peripheral vision and he lolled his head to seek its source, too weary for even a twinge of apprehension. The Force had manifested Rey, seated but hunched over, head bowed away from him, limned in wan light. She was so close he could almost reach out from his sleeper to tap her shoulder.</p><p>He started to speak her name, but the serenity flooding their bond told him she slumbered. He wouldn’t disturb her. For a long while, he simply lay, her breath rhythmic as water against a boat’s hull, soothing his senses. The peace of her presence snuggled around him in heady comfort.</p><p>His eyelids sagged, but he dragged them open for one last glimpse—light glinted gold in her unbound hair. He’d never seen it down. If he combed his fingers through the fall of shimmering brown, what would it feel like? He clenched the bed linens in his fist and pummeled his imagination. After a lifetime of self-discipline, surely he was beyond such base distraction. What he longed for, he scolded himself, was her strength of soul, his mirror in the Force.</p><p>Then another traitorous thought slithered into his conscious. When had Rey grown into a woman? Not in the accumulation of years, no, but in maturity and experience. She was no longer the naïve girl he’d abducted to Starkiller Base, nascent in the Force and sheltered by her simple life on Jakku. His gut swirled as he recalled how their minds had tangled that first time. Shame and sorrow for having hurt her. Yearning for how she’d slipped so easily between his thoughts, like she’d belonged there always, and seen him—the ugly, painful truth of him but no less the real him. It roused fear then, but now? His gaze trailed past the puckered curve of a scar, down the creamy skin of her unwrapped forearm, to the twitch of her fingers where they curled around— </p><p>He squinted. Her fingers clutched a pen. Where had she found such an archaic instrument? And then he recognized the surface—a built-in ledge, something like a desk in the <em>Falcon’s</em> stateroom. How often had his mom hunched over that same cramped space working feverishly on senate documents during one of his dad’s jaunts across the galaxy?</p><p>Back when the three of them were still a family. Back when they’d laughed together over another of his mom’s failed efforts in the galley. Back when he’d stood in awe beneath the sea of stars and his dad had squeezed his shoulder and said, “<em>This</em> is your legacy, kid.” Not the <em>Falcon</em> or the Force or anything other than his dad’s own undying love for adventure—which was, Kylo supposed, his most heartfelt offering. Back when Han Solo was alive. Ache and remorse rived his heart. He shoved it away. Surely it was only weariness making him nostalgic.</p><p>But he was awake now. He needed to move, escape the morbid memories. He swung bare soles to the sterile floor, a chill skittering up his spine. He stood, took a step to the side and looked down. Rey pillowed her ear against a bent elbow. Faint lines creased her forehead even in repose. He wanted to smooth them away, to brush back the tendrils that framed her brow, but he wouldn’t risk disturbing her rest, were she as tired as he. A lock of hair fell across her cheek, rising on the breath of her exhalations then settling back.</p><p>Something had shadowed her brightness, dimmed her seemingly unquenchable optimism. It made him inexplicably sad. Was it knowing she was descended from Palpatine? Should he not have told her? No, that was for the best. The Emperor would only have used it to manipulate her. A small voice whispered that he was no better. That he hoped she would respond as he did when he learned Darth Vader was his grandfather, that she would embrace the dark side, acknowledge her destiny and stand with him. But if that required extinguishing all that was light and bright in her, did he truly desire it? Could he bear to witness the darkness jade her hope and twist her generosity of spirit into something cynical?</p><p>His attention shifted from her to the flimsiplast under her writing arm. Flimsi that must have been stashed on the <em>Falcon</em> many years ago, whether in his hoard or his mother’s. He smiled to think Rey might have found what he’d tucked away, as if he’d given her an anonymous gift she couldn’t reject. He leaned closer and examined her handwriting without reading. It scrawled laboriously across the page with the large, painstaking form of a novice. But then she wouldn’t have been educated—not like he was—and, really, it was testament to her insatiable aptitude for learning that she could write at all.</p><p>The phrase “life without you” leaped at him and he tore his gaze away. He shouldn’t read it. Even if their bond afforded him insight to her thoughts and feelings, he should allow her this privacy. But his eyes betrayed him, sliding back to the words of their own accord. He caught “I love you” and prickly heat speared his chest. What was this, a farewell note to some amour? The defector perhaps?</p><p>He crooked his fingers to call the pages to hand, then reconsidered using the Force, and slipped them from under her arm, slowly and with utmost care to avoid waking her. Maybe he shouldn’t read it, shouldn’t violate her trust like that, but intel was intel. And she <em>was</em> still the enemy.</p><p>He shuffled the sheets into order and began at the top.</p><p>
  <em>Dear Ben,</em>
</p><p>He sucked in a breath, loud enough to wake Rey. He froze.</p><p>She scrunched her pert nose in that endearing manner, rubbed her lips together and settled again.</p><p>To whom was she writing? The boy he once was, to some noble ideal she’d enshrined on a pedestal? To that tenacious man who refused to die, despite all Kylo’s efforts to vanquish him? Did the labels matter? The fact was that she had written to <em>him</em>. His heart sped up and he released a long, silent exhale to steady his pulse.</p><p>He bowed further into her circle of light, the position awkward, but he wouldn’t risk even the remote chance of disturbing her by flicking on the lights. He read on, automatically parsing her phonetic spelling:</p><p>
  <em>Dear Ben,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I know you’ll probably never read this. But if you do, it’ll be only because the Force has somehow miraculously delivered my words into your hands. Still, I have to believe it will, even if I’m gone. I have to hope. Otherwise what’s the point in connecting us?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rose is constantly reminding everyone that we’ll only win this war by saving what we love. It gets annoying and you’d probably mock such sentiment. But that’s what I’m trying to do—to save what I love. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love lots of things. I love my friends in the Resistance—they’re the only family I’ve ever known. I love your mom and Chewie. I love this galaxy in all its variety, more worlds than I can imagine and each one unique. And I love freedom, messy as it is. Conflict and chaos are inevitable when free wills collide, but when they work together? Oh, Ben, just imagine the life we could have!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So I’m doing this for you too. I’ll admit that I’m afraid. I don’t know what it means that Palpatine is my grandfather, if that means there’s a weakness in my cells that will fail me in the end, but I will face him to save you. Because we </em>
  <span class="u">are</span>
  <em> one—you called us a dyad in the Force. Whatever a dyad may be, I know that I catch glimpses into your memories. Your thoughts and emotions echo in my mind and heart. I feel your anger and anxiety and yearning. I know you in your inmost being. I’ve seen your true self, shackled and tortured and starving for light. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>If we’re a dyad and I know you, then you must know me. Do you, Ben? Haven’t you confronted me with my own fears and dreams? In some ways, you probably know me better than I know myself. After all my years waiting alone, even after the Resistance showed me what it is to be loved, only you see me as I am, understand the conflicts within me, the burden of power. I never realized how desperately I longed to be known until I considered what it is to be known by you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You are as close as my own soul. You are as necessary as the air I breathe. Please come home. For me. Take my hand and I’ll take yours. I don’t want to face life without you. That’s why I’m going to Exegol. I go to save what I love, and I love you</em>
</p><p>The words trailed off where she’d fallen asleep. Kylo traced his index finger over <em>I go to save what I love, and I love you. </em>He’d wanted her beside him, but love? His heart pounded in wonder and swelled with fierce protectiveness. This bright flame in the Force, this being of grace and power, this complement to his very self—she loved him. She was willing to lay down her life for him, for his battered and splintered scrap of a soul. How could it be, he who was unworthy of such a love?</p><p>He staggered back, collided with the sleeper’s edge, and his knees buckled. Her confession bowled over him in a tsunami of truth, reverberated through him with the power of tectonic shift, reshaping his inmost geography. He sucked mighty breaths, chest rolling in quiet desperation to mute the upheaval. She might as well have run him through with a lightsaber.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Tsunami of Truth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kylo Ren meets his moment of metanoia.</p>
<p>Metanoia, a transliteration of the Greek μετάνοια, means after-thought or beyond-thought, with meta meaning "after" or "beyond" and nous meaning "mind". It's commonly understood as "a transformative change of heart; especially: a spiritual conversion."</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kylo scooted farther onto the mattress of his sleeper, folded his legs and straightened his backbone that the blood might flow most effectively to his brain. The meditative posture of long habit would aid his reflections. Now that the initial tsunami of emotion had crashed over him and receded to a mere thunderous surf, he needed to evaluate what she had written. The letter he placed on his thigh, loath to lose contact with something so precious.</p>
<p>As if called to account by her admission, all the rejections Rey had ever fired at him lined up like troopers for inspection. Were they only armor to hide her true feelings all along? No less a mask than the one he wore?</p>
<p>But she did refuse him; she rejected Kylo Ren, who dwelt and dealt in the dark. For him to likewise reject the identity he’d assumed, to smash the vessel Snoke had cast upon his cruel potter’s wheel, an excruciating formation that was decades in the making, what would remain apart from a fearful boy and an angry youth huddling among the shards of broken dreams? Would Rey still desire the husk that was left? He thought not. No matter that she was crafted from hope, that she loved and believed in him, it was too late. There was no going back.</p>
<p>He couldn’t give her what she wanted, and she deserved better. He would return the letter to where he found it, and she’d never know how close he came. He’d kill Palpatine, and then he’d slip out of her life forever. He’d find some way to sever the bond. Somehow. For all the times he shouted at her to <em>let go</em>, he’d do it for her. <em>Kill it if you have to.</em> Set her free to live her life unchained to him. His heart seized in a painful spasm at just the thought, but he could do this. For her. That flicker of hope sputtered and extinguished, smothered in the thick, embalming dark.</p>
<p>But first.</p>
<p>First he’d indulge in reading her letter one last time. The <em>Falcon’s</em> illumination bleeding across their Force-connection barely reached his bed. Still, he only leaned toward the dim light and welcomed the eyestrain, let the Force guide his finger along the words, spooling them into the vault of memory, as he once had done when studying the ancient texts.</p>
<p>It was unwise, perhaps, to torture himself by holding on to this keepsake when he must let go the reality, but it was a small concession. Later he could produce her words to admire, roll them round and round in his hands like the calming obsidian stones he’d collected as a boy on Chandrila, worn smooth and shiny tumbling in the surf of the Silver Sea. He neared the end and slowed, reading and rereading the final paragraphs.</p>
<p>Could he not say the same to her in return?</p>
<p>
  <em>…only you see me as I am, understand the conflicts within me, the burden of power. I never realized how desperately I longed to be known until I considered what it is to be known by you.</em>
</p>
<p>If she meant what she wrote—and he knew she did—if she truly understood the tensions within him, then she did not reject Kylo Ren to embrace Ben Solo. She did not reject his darkness to embrace his light. No, her arms stretched wide enough to encompass the entirety of his embattled self. He was the one who had chosen the exclusive dark, who had striven to amputate those aspects that earned Snoke’s sneering condemnation—the obstinate light, the assiduous compassion, the relentless hope. Rey wanted him whole. Everything in him surged forward in a rush. Maybe she was right. Maybe there was a way. To knit back together the ragged tear, to close the chasm at the core of his being, could it even be done?</p>
<p>He rolled his neck, relaxed his shoulders, and breathed until his heart slowed to a composed pace. Then he stretched out his senses through the Force. Tentative. Unpracticed. How much had passed since he was shown this path at his uncle’s knee. Not through anger or fear, passion or pain, but through peace, through serenity—</p>
<p>He waited, the beat of his heart the only sound, the respiration of his lungs the only movement.</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>As empty as airless space.</p>
<p><em>Patience, my young padawan</em>. Luke’s wry voice chuckled in his memory and Kylo swallowed a scoff. He couldn’t even remember how a lightsider—let alone a Jedi—accessed the Force. He’d never been particularly adept even when he did. What a farce. Who was he kidding?</p>
<p>Rey murmured and he stiffened, the letter resting on his thigh heavy as a judge’s gavel.</p>
<p>“Ben?” She whispered in her sleep.</p>
<p>That name. <em>His</em> name. He latched onto the single word where it hung between them, pulsing with warmth and shining as a star.</p>
<p>“Ben,” she said again, this time with more insistence.</p>
<p>He held onto his name and allowed the echo of her voice to pull him back into her dreams. He floated along the channels of her sleeping conscious, the currents of her mind carrying him where she willed. There were no sharp edges, nothing to discomfort, nothing to alert her to his invasion. Because he belonged here. He luxuriated in the balmy flow as it drew him down toward drowsiness.</p>
<p>What was he doing? This was not going to end well. She was going to wake up and shove him from her dreamscape. And when she learned he’d read her letter, even if it was addressed to him, the inevitable rejection would hurt infinitely worse than any preceding. In a blink, the fluid ocean of thought and feeling focused into sight.</p>
<p><em>She faced him across the </em>Steadfast’s<em> hangar bay, only the Force enabling them to stand against the </em>Falcon’s<em> turbulence. Stormtroopers blew behind him, overturned like so many snowflakes in a winter gust.</em></p>
<p><em>“I know what I need to do,” Rey said. Her forehead furrowed above glittering eyes and her lips firmed into resolve. She was going to abandon him, leap onto the </em>Falcon<em> and fly away, same as everyone who’d ever professed to love him.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>But she thrust out her hand, quick and sharp, as if she’d made a split-second decision and wanted to act before she regretted it.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He didn’t hesitate and launched himself to grab hold. The instant they connected, he saw what she intended. She spun and they leaped as one, hand-in-hand, from the destroyer’s brink into the nothingness between his ship and hers. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Then ionized light swallowed them in an explosion of blue. It seared through his head, a sapphire flame licking at his neurons, burning a brilliant map of his synapses, racing down his spine, and deeper still, refining at a level of being beyond understanding—</em>
</p>
<p>His eyes flew open and there it was, as if a visor had been lifted, the Force swirling with the light that had always been, that golden halo emanating from Rey more vivid than he’d ever seen. He inhaled deeply and it was breathing for the first time. But the exquisite agony in his lungs, like that in his soul, was the pain of a creature unfurling wings long-pinioned. He exulted to be alive.</p>
<p>He extended his senses through the destroyer—so many lives, desperation threaded with hope, pain threaded with joy, dark threaded with light—and there, in the bowels of their training room, pinpricks of brilliance marring the absence of being that marked his Knights. No longer his. And on the bridge, was that scheming shadow General Pryde? He narrowed his gaze in the Force. Palpatine had greater games afoot, back-up plans to his back-up plans. Ben would need to act with circumspection.</p>
<p>Then he flung himself on the tides of the Force, sweeping out beyond the <em>Steadfast</em>, past the spangled planets wheeling in their courses, until his soul resounded with the celestial symphony swelling in the vacuum of space. When did the music cease to ring for him? How could he have forgotten the sheer beauty, the magnitude of joy? He drifted in a sea of stars, an ocean of energy, his very cells resonating with the harmonics of creation, of sound and color beyond perception. He positively wallowed. It made him want to laugh.</p>
<p>And there. Just there as he pulled back. Bright as a lighthouse on midnight shoals, that unmistakable beacon that had guided and accused and betrayed him in the end. <em>Mom</em>. His involuntary reaction sent a whisper rippling across the stars.</p>
<p>Her light flared, as if he’d blown on a flame, and the sense of her strengthened into wordless caress, warm and tender, clear as if she’d spoken. <em>Ben.</em> Could there be this much grace in the galaxy, after all he had cost her, that she could love him still?</p>
<p><em>Ben</em>, came again, this time tinted with that chiding tease of a smile. Her love washed over him, seeking the cracks and crevices, filtering down to settle in the bedrock of his soul.</p>
<p>There would be time later, after she managed to tuck his giant frame within her diminutive hug, to find words for the unspeakable, but for now it was enough to know he could go home.</p>
<p>He eased off the edge of the sleeper and onto numb feet, legs prickling with sensation after sitting too long in one position. His entire universe had turned inside out, yet nothing had changed in his darkened suite. Rey slept on, a luminous island, oblivious to the transformation her letter sparked.</p>
<p>He smiled down on her in gentle benediction, and he knew, from the immensity that throbbed within him, that he had only ever loved her with half his heart—if love it could be called. Because he had been only half a man, locked in a lightless cellar and begging her to join him in his loneliness. But now the doors and windows were thrown open and the Force blew through him in a freshening breeze. Yes, he was Ben again—had he not always been Ben?—and he was Kylo. He looked with compassion on the broken, angry boy aching to be loved, still raw and exposed. And he loved him. Healing would come, in time, but there would be no more locked cellars, no more hiding in the dark.</p>
<p>But how to tell her? She would know, wouldn’t she, just by looking at him and sensing the change across their bond. He probed their connection cautiously and staggered at the veritable river of light, still threaded with that same undertow of dark, vibrant as a living thing. Perhaps he’d held back before, unconsciously ashamed of his shadowed soul, or unwilling to taint or be tainted by her, or to invite her rejection. But now— </p>
<p>It was a miracle she hadn’t woken, testament to her exhaustion. Her weariness flooded through him, a weariness borne of physical exertion and emotional turbulence. He’d done this to her, wielding the knowledge of her heritage and their dyad like a weapon. She’d wrestled monsters and prevailed. She needed restorative sleep. It would be selfish to wake her.</p>
<p>Ben reorganized the sheets of her letter as he had found them, slipped them back under her inert palm. His fingertips hovered over the strange scar on her upper arm, unsettlingly reminiscent of reaching hands. The longing to touch her built, and he traced the line between fair skin and tanned, this daughter of the sun. His stroke lingered featherlight, the warmth of his feelings transferring through the contact. Heat bloomed and climbed his arm, wrapping about him in a hazy glow.</p>
<p>Rey hummed in her sleep. The lines creasing her brow and that tightness around her mouth relaxed, her contentment seeping across their bond. Good.</p>
<p><em>Imagine the life we could have</em>. He would wake her if he did. <em>Sleep in peace, my dear scavenger</em>, he murmured into her mind. He floated the command on the gentlest Force suggestion, enough to aid her rest yet easily overcome. And then, with an enormous effort of will, he withdrew.</p>
<p><em>Think</em>. He had to set aside this alien elation and think. She couldn’t face her grandfather alone. They were meant to battle side-by-side as the Force had already shown him. And then there were the Allegiant General, the First and Final Orders, the Resistance and the fallout from his long, stormy history to navigate, each towing a cascade of consequences. It could wait a few hours until she was alert and refreshed.</p>
<p>But for now, he paced across the room, switched on his small desk lamp. He dare not risk the time for a long reply. He glanced back; Rey still slumbered where he left her. It was the work of a minute to select pen and ink, letter a few deft words, and fold the flimsi. He would leave it under her fingers. He smiled, imagining the fireworks of her delight, how he would—he would—  His imagination withered at the prospect of—of—  His heart hammered, and he licked his lips.</p>
<p>When had he become such a short-sighted and sentimental fool? The answer was too simple. She’d rebuke him if he didn’t rouse her. He’d confess he read her letter, and they’d figure out the rest together. Nervous anticipation bubbled through him.</p>
<p>“Rey!” He called as he spun on his bare sole.</p>
<p>But the Force had already closed their connection.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I realize this chapter was yet another sustained dive into Kylo|Ben’s psyche. Thanks for your patience. ;-) Rest assured that Reylo is endgame, and oodles of Ben and Rey are coming up next post—just hang on! And thank you for the kudos and comments—it’s so incredibly encouraging to know you’re reading and enjoying! &lt;333</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Wind in the Waves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rey encounters the dark side and faces a transformed Ben.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>11 Aug 20//chapter 4 update:  Hazards of a WIP…after I finished drafting the next chapter, I realized I needed to revise this one. No substantive changes. I added about 350 words, mostly to illuminate Rey’s internal climate and connect better to what’s coming. -XE</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey fled in horror from her Sith alter-ego. Filed teeth, amber eyes, the double-bladed crimson saber. <em>Because he saw what you would become. You have his power.</em> No! Not this. Never this. She’d exile herself to Ahch-To. She’d cut herself off from the Force before she became a… a monster. Fear sank its icy fangs into her gut.</p><p>She scuttled backwards to escape Palpatine’s vault. Her heel caught on the threshold and she sprawled onto her back with a grunt, the wayfinder lurching from her hand. She rolled onto her stomach as it went skidding across the uneven floor of the derelict Death Star.</p><p>A black glove halted its flight.</p><p>Kylo Ren. She should have known. Unshakeable as her own shadow. Her gaze traveled from his boots braced against the sloping surface and ascended the cape draping from those broad shoulders. At least he was unmasked.</p><p>He looked different somehow. His clothes were the same unrelenting black, dark as onyx, but there was a certain looseness to his posture as if he were not so tightly wound. Even his hair seemed less restrained, the way it lifted and danced around his face. It must be the wind off the waves. The corner of his mouth yielded the tiniest quirk, savoring almost of amusement. Not unlike Han. Was he mocking her?</p><p>She raised her eyes to his and the warmth—even tenderness—in their sable depths nearly undid her. <em>Ben</em>. Her heart cried out for his, aching with the temptation to open herself to their bond, to connect with him through the Force, to revel in the melody that sang between their souls. Her pulse pounded in her veins.</p><p>She was stronger than this. She tightened her seal against their bond, until the sense of him was only a faint buzz. Shock over the revelation of her identity had lowered her defenses above Kijimi. She’d been lured into his feelings, by his longing and hers, by the promise of all they were meant to be. She’d nearly succumbed, but she must not be seduced by premature hope again. The dark Rey she’d fought among the Emperor’s treasures? The dark Rey she would become if she yielded to his wishes, <em>that</em> was what Kylo pictured for her, reigning beside him from the Sith throne. She must not allow herself to forget. But it wasn’t fair.</p><p>She wrapped injustice around her like a cloak. It wasn’t fair, to be confronted with him now. Not after realizing she loved him. Not after she fell asleep before she could even finish her letter. Not after she beheld Ben in her dreams, a being of light and splendor. Not after she’d wrestled temptation and chosen the path of sacrifice. Was this the Force’s malicious idea of a joke? Those icy fangs twisted and her stomach clenched.</p><p>“Rey, I—”</p><p>She sprang to her feet, lightsaber sizzling to life, before he could finish. “Give me the wayfinder.”</p><p>“What you saw in there—” He gestured toward the vault with his free hand.</p><p>She tried manipulating the Force to compel him with command. “You will release the wayfinder. You want to give it to me.”</p><p>If it had any effect, he gave no indication.</p><p>“That place,” he said, this time stabbing his finger behind her, “it’s designed to prey on your deepest fears, to entice you into the dark.”</p><p>“I’m not going to discuss it with you.” She dare not. Entertaining his entreaty again would be opening a tent flap in a sandstorm, and she couldn’t count on Finn to snatch her from the brink this time. But inuring herself against Ben was akin to frost sheathing her heart.</p><p>His fingers closed tighter, combatting Force with Force, and the softness in his eyes hardened toward steel. “Fear is one pathway. Anger is another. Don’t give in to it. Trust me, I know where this leads.”</p><p>Wasn’t he always telling her to surrender? She shook her head as if to ward a swarm of sandflies. “I will not listen to you.” She increased her tension on the wayfinder. “Give it to me. Now.”</p><p>The leather of his glove creaked as the little pyramid pulsed a sickly green within his grip. How long before it exploded like the Skywalker saber, torn between their opposing pressures?</p><p>“Ben, don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” she said, teeth clenched with the strain.</p><p>“Really? Oh, Rey.” His eyebrows peaked and his forehead furrowed. “You’re the one making it difficult. Don’t you see? He’s using this to draw you to himself.”</p><p>She did see, with sudden clarity. Clear as ice. She would take the wayfinder, she would go to Exegol, she would strike down Palpatine, and nothing would stop her. Not Kylo Ren. Not the temptation before her. Not the First Order or the Resistance. <em>This</em> was her destiny. To save her friends. To save Ben by setting him free. “Give. Me. The. Wayfinder.”</p><p><em>My child</em>, a gravelly voice grated across her mind. She teetered over a freezing well of Force—bottomless power, if she would just <em>let go</em>. She swatted the voice away and heaved on the artifact. A subsonic boom shuddered between them.</p><p>“I didn’t want to do this, but the only way you’ll go to Exegol is with me.” Kylo bit out the words, though there was no triumph in them. If anything, he seemed sad. Then his fist compressed and the wayfinder crumpled.</p><p>How dare he! She leapt at him, swinging her saber with a roar.</p><p>He spun into her lunge and with one fierce sweep pinned her blade to the floor in a shower of blue and gold. She blinked, frozen. He towered over her, so close she caught the scent of leather and spice and something uniquely him. He was breathing hard—harder than his advantage in height and strength warranted. Steam from his mouth heated her cheek, curled into her ear, and raised the fine hairs on her arms and nape.</p><p>But she could only stare at their crossed sabers, arcing together and spitting against the durasteel. It was all wrong. The sound, the color, the vibration through her hilt and in the waves of Force. She couldn’t make sense of it.</p><p>“I will not fight you.” He released the block and jumped away, out of her reach, saber held before him like a shield. “But I will defend myself.”</p><p>Gold. His saber burned gold.</p><p>“Your lightsaber—” She sputtered, all her icy rage melting away in the face of its radiance, her cloak of injustice discarded like so many rags. “What happened to your saber?”</p><p>He cast a glance at the glowing plasma with something like affection, and she could have sworn his saber purred. If it weren’t for the distinctive cross-guards, she wouldn’t have recognized it without the telltale snap and crackle. That trace of a smile tugged harder on his mouth, enough to groove his cheek. Had she ever seen him smile? Kylo Ren didn’t smile.</p><p>Something warm rekindled near her heart and fluttered toward her throat. Could it be? Could he— </p><p>“The crystal was fractured, but now”—he powered off the weapon and secured it at his waist before fixing her in his decisive and unwavering gaze—“now it’s healed.”</p><p>He referred to more than the saber.</p><p>Her soul blazed up in an inferno of hope. “But then— you— does that mean?”</p><p>He dipped his chin in affirmation. Just once, the slightest nod. As if anything more might rupture their tenuous equilibrium.</p><p>“Ben.” She invoked his name with an exhaled breath, with longing and wonder and supplication.</p><p>Had she only ever perceived him through an opaque glass? When did this happen? How did she miss the change? He was reborn, baptized through her veil of tears. Each mark and scar sacred in his fair complexion. Those knowing eyes that pierced her soul, shining from beneath an open brow, watching her and waiting. Soft lips parted. And the gallant nose that was so very Han. She’d never considered him especially handsome. The long, sloping lines of his features had always been compelling, but in this moment, he was beautiful. Unfettered and free and fully alive. He was Ben. <em>Her</em> Ben. Her skin prickled into ten thousand tiny dots.</p><p>The clouds shifted and sunlight spilled through the wrecked viewport. A salty breeze wafted in and tousled his hair as if the Force were capering about him and chanting, “See? See? Why did you doubt?”</p><p>She tore at the mental rampart she had erected in their bond, that she’d striven so hard to maintain since Crait and lately failed. The first sensation that trickled across was stomach-churning anxiety.</p><p>For all his calm demeanor, though he stood there with his heart in his eyes, he was apprehensive.</p><p>She longed to run to him and reassure him that she loved him. Hadn’t she daydreamed her response, indulged the girlish fantasy that she’d throw her arms around his neck and kiss him silly? But it wasn’t that simple. Their history and heritage littered the chasm between like so much rubble.</p><p>“It’s not quite how I imagined it either,” he said, as if he could hear her thoughts. His voice was different too. The same ironic humor that had tweaked his mouth now replaced his formerly crisp pitch of command. He motioned toward her hands. “But it’d be a goodwill gesture if you deactivated your lightsaber.”</p><p>“Yes. Of course.” She frowned at the shining beam—had she really been standing here with it aimed at him? She flicked the switch and clipped the hilt to her belt. She’d been so angry, so intent on her goal, driven by that chilling resolve—just minutes ago—she might have killed him. Would have, if it’d come to that. “Ben. I’m so sorry.” She shuffled backwards, stricken, half-tripping on debris. “I almost—”</p><p>He inched forward. “Shh. It’s okay.”</p><p>“But I could have—” She couldn’t admit it aloud. She clapped a hand over her mouth and staggered back. She could have killed him—he whom her heart loved and longed for, he who was perfectly formed to fit like a missing piece in the map of her soul. Her fingers scrabbled toward her chest, clutching at her wraps as if she could somehow mute the pain. What had she done? <em>He saw what you would become</em>.</p><p>“I feel it too. Don’t be afraid.” He advanced another step, one hand outstretched as if soothing a terrified animal. “The light, the dark—it flows in us both. But it’s our choices that define us. You showed me.”</p><p>How could he look at her like that, with such compassion? How could he still desire her, knowing who she was, what she was capable of?</p><p>“I’m a Palpatine!” She shouted and nearly choked on the name. “I heard his voice in my head. I didn’t <em>choose</em> that.”</p><p>“I’ve lived with his voice in my head all my life. And I’m a Vader.” He ceased his forward progress to encompass the soaring ceiling, the twisted viewport, the mangled command chair with a sweep of his long arm. “Do you know the last thing that happened in this room?”</p><p>“Vader threw the Emperor to his death?”</p><p>“No.” He shook his head and scanned the chamber as if he witnessed the scene unfolding. “Love won that day. A son’s love. A father’s love. Your grandfather may have killed mine, but not before he turned to the light. It was Anakin Skywalker who saved the son he loved.”</p><p>His words pierced the fog of fear as a ray of sun. If Anakin could embrace the light with his dying breath, if Ben could be restored, was that not reassurance enough for a granddaughter of Palpatine? Was she too good or too evil to fall beyond redemption? She thought of Master Luke, how he castigated himself for his hubris. Humility acknowledged but did not fear weakness. Humility saw in weakness the opportunity to learn from wiser minds, to lean on broader shoulders, to grow stronger. She let go her fear on a slow exhale, tension unfurling from her shoulders. She was not alone and their mutual understanding was not theoretical. They could lean on one another and grow stronger together.</p><p>Ben’s gaze grew distant and he mused. “I wanted so much to be like him.”</p><p>Admiration welled like a warm spring. What humility and courage and determination he had rallied to make this choice. To say he exchanged Kylo Ren for Ben Solo was inaccurate, when he was at last more fully himself than he had ever been, flawed and beautiful and beloved. “You are,” she murmured, “in the very best ways.”</p><p>“Master Luke once told me our lives are determined not by the blood that flows in our veins, but by the love that beats in our hearts. I scorned him then.” Ben refocused on her. “I believe him now.”</p><p>“I’m glad.” She offered him an earnest smile, feeling suddenly shy and exposed by the warmth and tenderness lapping at the edges of their bond.</p><p>“It was—”  A flush climbed his neck, mottling his pale cheeks, but he didn’t look away. “It was you—your love—that saved me. And we win by saving what we love.”</p><p>She stifled a gasp. What Rose always said. But how could he know?</p><p>“Rey, there’s something I need to confess.” He raked a hand through his hair and braced his shoulders. “The Force connected us when you were asleep on the <em>Falcon</em>. I saw your letter. I read it.”</p><p>She opened her mouth to protest, but her outrage died as quickly as it flared. Wasn’t this precisely what she wished, just sooner than she could have conceived?</p><p>An awkward silence hung as they stared at one another across the devastated expanse. What remained to be said, when he’d already read her most heartfelt and intimate confession? When he would as easily read her thoughts and emotions through their dyad? There’d always been conflict of some kind to muffle the magnetism that hummed between them, if opposing sides of a galactic war were not enough. But now it was washed away, caught up in the immense breakers and swept into the sea. All that remained was this bond between them, pulsing and flickering with contained energy. What would happen when the switch was thrown and the circuit opened?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well, they wouldn’t be Kylo|Ben and Rey if they just fell into each other’s arms without a little conflict, would they? But it wasn’t too painful, was it? Conclusion to this scene coming next post—sweetness and fluff too… Thank you for reading! &lt;3&lt;3&lt;3</p><p>A note on the gold saber:  There’s a theory floating around that Ben stole Luke’s green lightsaber, or at least the kyber crystal from it, and employed the Sith practice of “bleeding” it to make Kylo Ren’s unstable cross-guard blade. As may be. My head canon is that since Rey’s new saber at TROS conclusion is yellow and they are “one” through their Force dyad, then Ben’s crystal would produce a similar color.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Sea of Stars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ben responds to Rey’s letter—and the story comes full circle.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the final post! Fair warning—sweetness and fluff ahead ::squee:: </p><p>(Side note: I revised chapter 4 as a better set-up for this one, adding about 350 words, but it’s not critical to reread unless you’re so inclined.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A massive swell broke against the Death Star and the structure rumbled. Or maybe it was only Rey’s heart thumping as Ben crossed the ravaged deck toward her, his steps purposeful and excruciatingly unhurried. Was this the vision she had foreseen, the culmination of her dreams for him—for them? When every barrier was removed, would it be as she hoped? So much balanced on the fulcrum of this moment. Still he came, through the chiaroscuro of sunlight and shadow. If specters remained from the battles fought in this place, they fled from his presence and the shimmering Force.</p><p>Ben peeled off his gloves and tucked them into the thick band girding his torso. He halted a stride away and stretched out his hand, the love and hope on his face as naked as his palm.</p><p>How many times had he offered his hand to her?</p><p>In the red audience room still raining fire, their hearts still beating as one with the adrenaline of battling together. <em>You’re nothing…but not to me. Join me. Please.</em> In the <em>Steadfast’s</em> hangar, in the wake of her birthright revealed, all his desperate need assailing her. <em>You know what you need to do. You know. </em>And the once they had touched through the Force—just the slightest foretaste—in the ruddy glow of her stone hut. <em>You’re not alone.</em></p><p>She reached toward him, not quite making contact.</p><p>His hand, bared now as then, dwarfed hers, but the enormity of power contained within called to its counterpart in her. He understood her as no one else could. <em>When I offer you my hand again, you’ll take it.</em></p><p>Their fingertips hovered, nerves vibrating with expectation, the very air between charged and sparking. The melody that sang of home stole her breath, twirled her heart into wild pirouettes, pealed like a chorus of bells, <em>yes</em>. Over and again, <em>yes!</em></p><p>How long had she wanted to take his hand? Ben’s hand. And now she could.</p><p>Skin met skin. Warmth and light blasted through her, their wide-open bond a cataract of love and joy and wonder. The thundering waves, the tilted wreckage, the haunted vault faded and there was only Ben, incandescent in the Force. It overwhelmed her, blinded her with brilliance.</p><p>Her hand clasped his, and his grip surrounded hers. Then he tugged her into his arms, and her wet cheek pressed against his quilted tunic. His ribcage heaved within the circle of her embrace. His lips, his tears anointed her hair. He clung to her and she to him, a shelter in the ocean of shared emotion. The Force and their bond within it surged with rapture, untamed and fierce as the breakers roiling outside.  </p><p>Somewhere in the riotous, quickening flow their minds tangled into a delicious joining of heart and soul and breath. Still uniquely themselves and yet somehow one. All sense of time and space dissolved. She could spend eternity exploring the mystery that was him and her together. Perhaps she had.</p><p>The turbulence began to wane, ebbing slowly into a river of light and dark, currents of energy twining them heart to heart and soul to soul.</p><p>And she could breathe again.</p><p>The longing that narrated her life, that tallied the lonely days on Jakku, that watched for her parents and looked to Han and Luke and Leia—for home, for belonging, for love—subsided with a sigh. Quiet and satiated at last. But she was mistaken. Ben did not complete her. She saw that now. To seek completion in the other was a burden too weighty for either to bear. They were formed for one another, yes, but it was in the giving, in the sharing, in the selfless act of loving that they would be made whole.</p><p>Awareness grew of his mouth moving against her crown and her name, whispered over and over like a prayer.</p><p>Then he showed her everything—from her improbable letter to his transformation to his soaring ecstasy at the song of creation. She understood his turn was not a return to the Jedi. He did not access the light through tranquility and abstinence, not as Master Luke had modeled. No, Ben discovered a new way, a better way, hand-in-hand with her in the dream-that-was-real, not through eschewal of feeling but through its rightness, into the fullness of the Force through the power of mercy and the strength of hope.</p><p>She drew back within his embrace and lifted her gaze. How often in encounters of high emotion had she seen him with this exact expression—eyes glassy, lips quivering? She felt it too. Drowning in the newness and immensity.</p><p>Rey reached to brush her thumb across the width of his trembling mouth.</p><p>It was all the invitation he needed.</p><p>Her nose collided with his chin. He was too tall or she too short, and they both shifted to close the gap. Their teeth clanked, the collision vibrating in her skull and evaporating their intensity. She wove her fingers behind his nape and released a huff of humor against his mouth. If this was kissing, she hadn’t missed much.</p><p>His laughter echoed within her mind. It was the sweetest sound she’d never heard.</p><p>Until his untried lips caught hers, pliant and exploring at first. Then with a consuming reverence that robbed her breath and soaked her in Ben all over again, this time magnified through her primary senses and mirrored in his heart-pounding pleasure. Bliss shivered through her limbs and curled her toes in her boots.</p><p>It wasn’t the first time. They’d done this before. <em>In a shadowed cavern, coated with grime. Cradled in his arms. He tasted of agony and euphoria. He studied her face, a breathtaking smile illuminating his own. Then he collapsed backwards and—</em> </p><p>Her hands slipped down his shoulders and she gripped his tunic in terror. Before she could retreat, vision flashed in a series of images. <em>Royal red guards. The Knights of Ren. A grotesque laugh emanating from a yellowed rictus. Rey and Ben suspended like insects in a web, sucked dry by Force-lightning. Ben plummeting into a flickering abyss.</em></p><p>She gulped and wound her fists tighter in his clothing. “Did you see that?”</p><p>He nodded, sober.</p><p>“Ben—  you died!”</p><p>“So did you.”</p><p>She missed that part. “We can’t go to Exegol. We can’t.” Panic pumped her lungs. She couldn’t bear to lose him now, not when he’d finally found his way home. Not when they were finally united. They could run. Hide. Figure out some other means to defeat the Emperor or protect the galaxy. They could—</p><p>“There’s nowhere we can hide from him.” Ben pried her fists from their manic clutch, massaged her fingers until the knuckles relaxed. How could he remain so calm and resolute? “He’ll always find me, and now he knows your signature in the Force, he’ll always find you. The entire galaxy will pay the price. There’s only one way. We have to destroy him.” A hard swallow traveled the thick column of his throat. “No matter the cost.”</p><p>Here was the man she loved and admired. The certitude. The willingness to sacrifice. The nobility of spirit, once bent under the weight of darkness, now shining forth undimmed.</p><p>“You’re right.” She squeezed his hands.</p><p>“Maybe it was only a warning.”</p><p>“Maybe.” It felt more significant, but she wasn’t ready to voice her disagreement and dispel the enchantment of their union. She took a breath and surveyed the room, its state registering belatedly. “Ben, look.”</p><p>In a circle radiating away from them, the broken floor was swept clean, all the rubble and debris mounded into the corners. The walls and ceiling bubbled out, bleached of grime, and even the vault’s blast door sported a massive dent. As if they were the epicenter of an explosion.</p><p>“I know.” His eyes crinkled in amusement. “Didn’t you feel it?”</p><p>She shook her head, dislodging a hank of brown hair. She must be a sight. But he reached for it first, drawing the strands between his fingers with a soft sigh before tucking them behind her ear. An impression of his disproportionate delight in its silkiness flashed through her. All because he’d stroked her hair? His fingers wove deeper, sliding against her scalp, and she pressed her cheek into his palm, unwilling to lose contact with his skin. Holding him, kissing him awakened a hunger that might never be satisfied. And she knew something about hunger.</p><p>He smiled—that toothy, heart-rending grin that threatened to unmake her all over again. The tips of his ears went rosy. His unrestricted access to her thoughts and feelings was going to take some acclimating.</p><p><em>Or maybe some respectful boundaries.</em> His unspoken words formed in her mind at the speed of thought, their shade and texture as distinctive as his scent. <em>Or something. We’ll figure it out.</em></p><p>He pulled away and rummaged beneath his tunic in a hidden pocket. “No matter what happens, I want you to have this.” He slipped a folded paper into her hand with a self-deprecating shrug. “I wrote you back.”</p><p>She smoothed her fingers over the matte surface like finely textured cloth. This was no ordinary scrap of flimsi.</p><p>“It doesn’t begin to do justice to the letter you wrote. But I only had a moment. I’ll do better later.” He kept talking as she unfolded it, his eyes bright and insecurity endearing. He only ceased when the simple note lay exposed between them.</p><p>She traced the elegance of his flowing script. It evoked that first time she marveled over a lake, set like a gemstone among verdant trees and sparkling with sunlight.</p><p>Relief tinged with embarrassment leached from him in their bond. <em>You flatter me.</em></p><p>The words only took her mind a second to decode. It was perfect.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dear Rey,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love you—</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ben</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>* * *</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Epilogue</em>
</p><p>Rey snuggled deeper against Ben’s thighs, her forehead burrowed in the hollow beneath his jaw, his arm braced around her back. His slumbering form draped like a blanket across the pilot’s seat, mammoth legs sprawled, mess of dark hair thrown over the <em>Millennium Falcon’s</em> inadequate headrest. They really should upgrade to a larger chair, especially since they shared it so often. A snore emanated from his parted lips, and she suppressed a chuckle.</p><p>He was warmer than a blanket as well, which Rey loved, because she’d never needed to worry about freezing to death in space again.</p><p>His body was too firm, his padding too scant, to create a comfortable cushion, but the girth of his chest beneath her, the beat of his heart in sync with her own, the ebb and flow of light in the bond of their dyad, amplified as it was through the intimacy of touch—it was an indulgence she couldn’t forsake, equal parts necessity and luxury.</p><p>She glanced across the display at the gauges. The <em>Falcon</em> would leave hyperspace in a few minutes.</p><p>An hour or so remained before they reached orbit and whatever surprises awaited their investigation of this latest disturbance in the Force. If she roused him now, there would be enough time. Maybe not as much as her husband liked—to be slow and deliberate and worshipping—but enough. A childhood of scarcity ensured she never bypassed an opportunity to feast. Ben never complained.</p><p>Rey nuzzled the solid pillar that was his neck.</p><p>His throat dipped, and he emitted a soft snort without raising his eyelids. “Your nose is cold.”</p><p>Kylo Ren would never have been caught in such an undignified pose. She grinned, the pain of that history having faded into bittersweet remembrance. They didn’t dwell on where they began, but neither would she wish to forget. What appeared hopeless from the ruins on Kef Bir in hindsight worked out just as it should.</p><p>She tipped her head farther back against his shoulder and crooned a gentle tune. Trailed her fingers across his cherished features, mapping the moles that dusted his skin. Caressed his mind with her own as he surfaced from deep rest.</p><p>Dusky lashes lifted on the muddy irises that at such close range were pricked with gold and green. His gaze settled on her, buttery soft and rich. He hummed low in his chest. The sound and the feeling that accompanied it were those of absolute contentment.</p><p>The <em>Falcon</em> dropped out of hyperspace with a mild jolt and faint grumble. Glowing streaks resolved into a starfield.</p><p>Rey continued her gentle ministrations, still singing absently. It might not be the most efficient means to wake him, but it was certainly the most pleasurable.</p><p>He stilled, all the slow stirrings of his body coming to a complete halt, with that peculiar absence of movement which conveyed his close attention.</p><p>She sat forward and swiveled, mildly concerned, to read his expression. She could have probed his mind for what struck him, but even in a dyad, they had learned the value of gifting each other this freedom.</p><p>He was alert now. “Those lyrics. What you were singing—”</p><p>Reassured he was well, she nestled back against him. “Oh, just something I picked up here or there.”</p><p>His heartbeat fluttered beside her spine, his anticipation like a held breath within their bond. “Tell me.”</p><p>She reeled the lullaby from the stream of memory and began to sing. “<em>You are my sun, my moon, my star—my beacon from afar—</em>”</p><p>His voice joined with hers, deeper and broader. “<em>Wherever I may roam, your steadfast love will light me home</em>.”</p><p>The thrill that tingled through her had less to do with his warm breath bathing her ear than the sensation she had lived this moment before. A lifetime ago. On that providential flight from Kijimi to Kef Bir.</p><p>“Rey…” Hesitance wobbled in his voice. “My dad. Before he’d leave, he’d always lean down and hum something in my mom’s ear. She’d giggle and squirm and swat him away. But she sang it to me sometimes when I was boy, I think as much to console herself in his absence as anything. Where did you—”</p><p>“Poe,” she said. “He found it in a river when he was a kid.”</p><p>Wonder washed over him and through her by proxy. Astonishment yielded to gratitude and radiated from him in waves.</p><p>“Ben.” She plucked at his shirt. “What is it?”</p><p>“I went with my dad once to Yavin 4,” he began. He invited her into his mind as he relived the recollection. “I don’t know how old I was—young for sure. It was the longest I’d been away from home. Han ordered me to stay on the <em>Falcon</em> while he left to negotiate. I was afraid and lonely. So I pulled out my calligraphy set and lettered that exact song. Then I stuffed the paper in a canteen and hurled it as far into the river as I could.”</p><p>Rey didn’t speak. She saw the gangly boy—the knobby joints and protruding ears, the future spelled in the length of his fingers and a heart that felt too much—calling out for her before she’d even breached the galaxy. And she loved him.</p><p>Conviction swept over her. In the tides of the Force, the currents of time flowed in an exquisite circle, spiraling ever toward a greater end in a grand design. She raised her eyes to the sea of stars, beacons of hope pushing back the darkness beyond the <em>Falcon’s</em> viewport.</p><p>Ben wove his fingers between hers and lifted them to his mouth, pressed his lips to the back of her hand. Tender with adoration, profound with awe.</p><p>And the Force resounded, through the bond of light uniting them mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul, with the symphony of the heavens.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so so so much for reading and for your comments and kudos along the way—they mean the world! I’m thrilled beyond measure that you enjoyed this story; I hope the conclusion satisfies. Writing and sharing it with you has been true joy and the absolute highlight in my very long and difficult summer. Thanks for making it better for me. ::sending Ben-sized hugs::</p><p>If you were expecting a longer fic, just know I was too. I struggled with ending as I had planned for more chapters. But I discovered as I wrote and rewrote the final scene that I was passionate about Ben’s transformation and how that changed his confrontation with Rey on Kef Bir, and not so much about everything that must inevitably follow—Exegol, Palpatine’s defeat, reunion with Leia, life for an ex-Supreme Leader, and so forth. So, I leave those details to your imagination and the many wonderful fics already out there that explore the possibilities.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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